rd themselves as
martyrs, and die with the secret consciousness that they have "acted
well their parts."

THE DIAMOND STAR;

OR,

THE ENGLISHMAN'S ADVENTURE.

A STORY OF VALENCIA.

In a fine summer night in the latter half of the seventeenth century,
(the day and year are immaterial,) Clarence Landon, a handsome and
high-spirited young Englishman, who had been passing some time in the
south of Spain, was standing on the banks of the Guadalquiver, in the
environs of the ancient city of Valencia, watching with anxious eyes
the fading sails of a small felucca, just visible in the golden rays
of the rising moon, as, catching a breath of the freshening western
breeze, they bore the light craft out upon the blue bosom of the
Mediterranean. Though the scene was one of surpassing beauty, though
the air was balmy, and came to his brow laden with the fragrance of
the orange, the myrtle, and the rose, the expression of the young
man's face was melancholy in the extreme.

"Too late!" he muttered to himself; "too late! It is hard, after
having ventured so much for them, that I should have been baffled in
my attempt to escape with them. However, they are safe and happy. If
this breeze holds, they will soon pass Cape St. Martin. Dear Estella,
how I value this pledge of your friendship and gratitude."

And the young man, after raising to his lips a small diamond star,
attached to a golden chain, deposited the trinket in his bosom, and
then, with a parting glance at the distant vessel, turned homewards in
the direction of the city gates.

Absorbed in his own reflections, he did not notice that his footsteps
were dogged by a tall figure, muffled in a black cloak, which pursued
him in the moonlight, like his shadow, and left him only when he
entered his _posada_.

Landon spent some time in his room in reading and arranging letters
and papers; and when the clock of a neighboring cathedral sounded the
hour of eleven, threw himself upon his bed without undressing, and was
soon asleep. From a disturbed and unrefreshing slumber, crowded with
vexatious visions, he was suddenly and rudely roused by a rough hand
laid upon his shoulder. He started upright in bed, and gazed around
him with astonishment. His chamber was filled by half a dozen
sinister-looking men, robed entirely in black, in whom he recognized,
not without a shudder, the dreaded familiars of the Holy Office, the
officials of the Inquisitorial Tribune. His first